Sunday, February 12, 2012

Precious Critique

Thia critique of Precious (Push) offers an unbiased looked at the novel, which is obviously important. I disagree with the Critic, Margot Mifflin's point about the 'fractured vernacular'. She believes that it makes parts of the novel 'flat'. The reasons why I disagree with this belief is that the language Sapphire employs in the novel aid us in understand the protagonists struggle with learning and the English Language. The broken english also helps us imagine the protagonists accent and dialect, a strong feature to the African Americans who live in Harlem, NYC.

Without the words being written like they were being said/written by the protagonist, the Novel would not have that same resonance that it has with the reader. I.e. the reader feels more attached with the protagonist because it simulates someone telling you their life story in the fullest way.

However, I do agree with the assertion that the novel recognises that there is an 'ugly truth' - but I believe this idea stretches further than just the Incest meetings that Precious attends. 'The ugly truth', to me, is in relation to Precious' life in general. Being diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s, having an unsupportive mother, being a mother herself... the list of ugly truths are endless but this is supports my reasoning behind disagreeing with the aforementioned idea that writing the novel in how Precious would have wrote it was a bad idea. Even though the list of ugly truths are endless, the language reflects her growing as a person and the leaps and bounds she makes in her education (which is something she was concerned with as she wanted to succeed.)